While attending Harvard, he worked at Boston radio stations to pay for his tuition. He started working for the Yankee Network in 1943, five years before television came along. Some of the shows he was involved in were: Breakfast with Bill, The Answer Man Tello Test Quiz and the long running interfaith religious panel show called Talking Religion.

When television came along in 1948, he had the opportunity to do things that had never been done before. For the first time, he did hour long programs originating from the Boston Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Peabody Museum at Harvard and the architecture department at MIT in front of cameras. He handled many interviews with celebrities. Bill also introduced John F. Kennedy into television, doing a multi-part series with him, when he was planning to run for the Senate in the early ‘50s. Later in his career he set the standard for public affairs programming in RKO’s broadcast properties throughout the country.